Sep. 18, 2015

Is Deep-Sea Exploration Worth It?

This week in The New York Times, journalist Chris Dixon posed the question: “Do humans have a future in deep sea exploration?” With the rise of robotic exploration carried out by remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), for example, financial support for manned submersibles—like the Pisces IV and V at the Hawai‘i Undersea Research Laboratory in Oahu—is increasingly limited. In fact NOAA’s deep sea exploration budget is a mere fraction of the one for NASA’s exploration funding. And yet, at least 90 percent of the world’s oceans remain unexplored. This is a problem, say scientists. In a 2012 interview with Science Friday, famed oceanographer Sylvia Earle said, “to explore—to peel back the layers of the unknown—is one of the most important things that we can do. Ignorance is killing us.” She returns to the program, along with deep sea explorers and researchers Hanumant Singh and Colin Wollerman, to discuss what place people have in deep sea exploration as technology continues to advance.